Just what the doctor ordered

Andrew Gruman

01/08/2009

The Arizona State Women's Basketball team needed this. No close game, no blown leads, none of that. After three heartbreaking losses in a row, the Sun Devils snapped their losing streak by controlling the second half and cruising past the Oregon St. Beavers 61-36 in Corvallis on Thursday and continued their domination of the non-Bay area Pac-10 schools.

ASU took just a four point lead into half, but outscored Oregon St. 35-14 in the second half to coast to a 25 point win.

"I challenged our team at halftime because we weren't working as hard as we needed to," said head coach Charli Turner Thorne, "In the second half they came out and were able to get the job done."

It was a balanced attack for the Sun Devils and that was evident from the opening tip. Four different Devils scored in the opening three and a half minutes as ASU quickly jumped out to an 8-0 lead.

Oregon State kept the game close throughout the first half and ASU's lead was just 12-11 with 9:02 to play in the first half. The first half saw ASU shoot poorly and that allowed the Beavers to stick with the Devils throughout the half. ASU shot just 11-27 in the first half and took a 26-22 lead into the locker room.

But the defense came to play in the second half and held the Beavers to just 14 points the rest of the way. ASU built their lead to 15 when Sybil Dosty's layup capped an 11-2 run to start the half and the Devils led 39-24.

Another 11-2 run right after was capped again by Dosty and ASU led 50-30 with 8:17 to play.

ASU's lead never dipped below twenty the rest of the way and their biggest lead was also the ending margin of twenty five points.

Part of the key to ASU's second half surge was the interior play of Sybil Dosty. The senior scored 10 of her 12 points in the second half to propel the Sun Devils.

"Our game plan was to get the ball to our posts because they scored really well in practice throughout the week and they did a great job today," said Turner Thorne.

Dymond Simon and Lauren Lacey were also in double figures for the Devils with 10 points apiece and Briann January chipped in 8. Becca Tobin had 8 rebounds as ASU out rebounded the Beavers 47-31. ASU's defense held Oregon St. to just 27.5% shooting and just 20.8% in the second half.

To Turner Thorne, ASU holding one of the more patient teams in the Pac 10 to that shooting percentage is a sign that the old Sun Devils may be coming back.

"We're getting back to being the Sun Devils of old," Turner Thorne said. "I don't think we let them run much of anything."

Any sort of win would have been nice for ASU, but a blowout win was exactly what they needed to rebound from three gut wrenching losses.

It was a win that was needed heading into Eugene where the Ducks have won two conference games in a row, defeating UCLA last weekend and taking down Arizona on Thursday.